


The Power He Knows

by RagingLamb



Category: Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Animal Death, Drinking, James Potter & Lily Evans Potter Live, M/M, Mentioned James Potter, Mentioned Lily Evans Potter, Mentioned Sirius Black, Pureblood Society (Harry Potter), The Great Gatsby AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-12 10:54:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29009364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RagingLamb/pseuds/RagingLamb
Summary: After graduating Hogwarts, Harry Potter decides to take the summer to relax before entering the high stress field of Defense. Black Cottage, where Harry is staying, is right next door to the stately Riddle Manor. But it soon becomes clear that it and its owner are not as stuffy as they appear.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy & Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy & Pansy Parkinson, Harry Potter/Tom Riddle
Comments: 8
Kudos: 118





	1. Bloom in Lilac

After Harry graduated Hogwarts Sirius offered up Black Cottage as a “bachelor pad” for Harry to use over the summer before he started on his defense mastery. It became apparent, once Harry apparated to the cottage, that it wasn’t much of a bachelor pad at all.

There was dust an inch thick on every surface. Cobwebs clogged every corner. And there were piles of boxes in every available room.

It took the better part of a week to get it back into a condition that met the standards that Lily had ingrained in Harry from an early age. And that was with the help of magic. Merlin only knows how long it would’ve taken cleaning the place out the muggle way.

Harry hadn’t taken a lot of time to enjoy the views of the other cottages and manors nearby during the week he’d been cleaning, but now that the work was finished, he set out into the only slightly overgrown garden to take a look around.

And what a view it was.

To the left of the property was a grand manor. Tall and picturesque, with a series of staggered verandas leading down to the back garden which contained the most impressive collection of magical flowering plants that Harry had ever seen. And that was saying something considering he grew up visiting the Longbottoms who indulged Neville’s herbology obsession.

That wasn’t even the most impressive thing about the place. Oh no, the impressive fixture was the gorgeous man sitting down to breakfast at a table on the highest veranda, turned out in a clean set of formal dress robes. The man looked up as Harry was admiring the view and smirked. And Harry flushed violently and ducked down behind the hedge separating the properties.

That night, the entire street was shaking from the bass coming out of the back garden of that glorious manor and Harry was regretting working so late cleaning every other night that week as he laid there in his bed staring up at the trembling light fixture overhead.

And that wasn’t the last time Harry had to deal with the loud parties next door. Near every night there was a party being thrown in the manor next door.

=====================================================================================

Another week in and Harry was about as ready to strangle his neighbor as snog him.

But then, right when he was ready to do it, there was a knock at his door. And there he was, the handsome devil that’d been interrupting Harry’s sleep all week.

In his hand was an envelope, “An invitation to my party tonight,” he said, holding it out to Harry.

Harry just stared at him for a moment.

“Ah,” said the neighbor, “How rude of me. My name is Tom Riddle.”

Harry finally managed to get his jaw working with his brain again, “Harry . . . uh, Potter,” he said.

Tom smiled at him and Harry felt heat rushing up to his face that he willed to stop and settle.

“So, will you come?” Tom asked.

“Uh . . . Oh! To-To the party. Yes. Yes, I will.”

And then he left Harry there, holding the invitation, thoroughly embarrassed.

=====================================================================================

That afternoon, Harry flooed across the bay to the Malfoy’s summer estate where Draco and Pansy were enjoying their own post-graduation breaks.

They briefly went about the traditional pureblood chitchat that chafed Harry’s nerves, but it passed quickly enough, giving way to teasing from Draco. It was mostly about the state of the cottage and Harry’s desire to enter a field as low class as teaching when he was the sole heir to the Potter and Black fortunes. Harry sniped back that at least he was planning a career. Draco had told him before graduation that he wasn’t sure of what he was going to do after.

“Actually,” Draco said with a smug smile, “I intend to enter the Wizengamut.”

“That’s hardly work at all,” Harry muttered.

Pansy snorted and Draco puffed up like a defensive peacock.

Then they got to the topic of neighbors. And it became apparent that this is exactly what Draco and Pansy had been waiting to talk about the entire time, perhaps since they extended the invitation to lunch.

“Black Cottage is right next to Riddle Manor, right?” Draco asked, none too subtle.

Pansy nodded, “Have you met the owner, I believe his name is Tom?”

‘Yeah, actually. He invited me over to one of those parties he’s always throwing just this morning.”

“What?!” Draco shouted, jumping up from his spot at the table.

“What?”

“You got an invite to one of Riddle’s parties!”

“And?”

“ _And_ they’re the most exclusive parties in all of wizarding Britain, Harry!”

“Draco’s right,” Pansy agreed, “Nothing is more sought after than an invitation to one of his soirees.”

Draco and Pansy both started moving towards the stairs to the second floor, dragging Harry along with them.

“Where are we going?” Harry asked.

“To get ready, of course,” Pansy answered.

“To get ready?”

Draco shook his head, “For the party, of course.” At Harry’s confused look, he informed Harry, “You’re brining us with, obviously. Can’t let you go bumbling into such an important function with your social skills.”

“Gee, thanks.”

=====================================================================================

They spent the next several hours getting prepared for the party. With Pansy and Draco both getting themselves ready before descending on Harry with combs and creams and stiffly pressed robes. In the end, Harry felt pinched by his pants, stifled by his robes, and suffocated by the fumes from the product that Draco and Pansy had employed to tame his hair.

But he couldn’t deny that he looked good in the sharp black robes trimmed with a shiny emerald green. And the tight pants showed off his assets whenever the robe flared just right.

=====================================================================================

More daunting than the prep was the party itself. Harry wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting when he knocked on the door of Riddle Manor, but after a week of sleepless nights from pounding bass, it wasn’t the black-tie event that greeted him. But what else could he expect from the elite purebloods that Draco and Pansy would wish to rub elbows with?

Harry felt even more stifled as he sat, stiff and distinctly uncomfortable, between Pansy and Draco at one of many round tables scattered across the tiered verandas of the manor.

Riddle was starting the party off with a fast-paced waltz that almost made Harry dizzy to watch. He was dancing with a witch who had a cascade of dark curls falling down her back. He recognized her as Draco’s aunt, Bellatrix Lestrange.

And then Riddle spread his arms, a sonorous charm placed on his voice, and said, “And now, let the party begin.”

And it did.

Immediately the seated purebloods rose and spread across the verandas, accepting drinks from the army of house elves that appeared with a scattering of pops. The party quickly turned from the type of party Harry dreaded as a child into the type of party that he dreaded as a teenager. The music was loud, booming, and Harry knew that he would be getting even less sleep now that he was in the thick of it because he’d be dragging Draco and Pansy home in the early hours of the morning. This was the type of party they’d loved while at Hogwarts.

Pansy and Draco were quick to abandon Harry once they’d gotten a drink in his hand and Harry was quick to escape to the garden entrance where he could be alone while he sipped at the champagne he’d been handed. It was almost peaceful once he got off the veranda, there was no actual music there, just the booming of the base which couldn’t be contained by basic silencing charms. Harry sat himself on the steps and stared out into the garden which was lightly illuminated by the occasional phosphorescent plant.

His eye caught on a particular light that stood out from the rest, despite its miniscule size. It was a color he was familiar with, but only barely. It was the color of some potions . . . and the killing curse.

He rose to his feet and shed his robe, draping it over the garden gate before walking down the dimly lit paths towards the light. It really was a beautiful garden. Harry wished to see it this close during the day awash in brilliant sunlight. In the end, he walked all the way through the immense garden, down to the lake’s edge, and to the end of the dock that lay there.

The green light was larger than it had appeared at the garden’s gate and it was radiant, though fuzzy around the edges. Harry stood there, leaned against the railing of the dock, staring into the light until a voice startled him out of his trance.

“Harry?”

It was Tom, he was looking down at Harry, confused, but not unhappy. That was good. He didn’t seem mad that Harry had ditched his party to stand alone in the dark by the lake.

“Harry?”

Tom was closer all of a sudden, hands on Harry’s shoulders. And his eyes were so dark in the lowlight. Harry’s eyes refocused, centering on Tom’s face.

The man smiled, his grip loosening some. “There you are.”

He looked past Harry and Harry knew that he was looking at that same beautiful light shining from across the lake. “You know,” he said, “I also like to come down here when the parties get to be too much.”

“Why do you throw these parties of they’re too much?” Harry asked.

Tom laughed, a great booming laugh that startled Harry, and said, “Honestly? I don’t know. Originally it was to show off the wealth I’d acquired, but now I’m not so sure.”

=====================================================================================

Eventually, Tom went back to host the party with Harry following along sometime later.

It was strange going back to that party and seeing some of the most prominent members of wizarding society getting absolutely smashed. They were all turned out in their expensive dress robes throwing back shots and grinding on each other like horny teenagers. (He was pretty sure he saw Sirius’ father doing something unseemly with a member of the Rosier family.)

Harry lingered at the edges of the party until it began to wind down in the wee hours of the morning. That was when he managed to track down Draco and Pansy, both drunk off their asses and near belligerent, and dragged them back over to the cottage where he let them collapse into his bed while he took the couch.

=====================================================================================

Harry rolled off the couch around noon with the intense desire to bake something. And with Lily’s manners drilled into him, he knew exactly who was going to be on the receiving end of the results.

So, he trudged into the kitchen and baked a batch of chocolate chip cookies which he carefully transferred into a large plastic container.

He didn’t know what he expected of Tom after the rager the night before, but it wasn’t to see him in a neatly pressed set of dress robes looking every bit an aristocrat’s wet dream. Tom was gracious in his acceptance of the cookies after an initial raised eyebrow and he invited Harry in for tea.

“Oh.” Harry said, flushing, “Um, I still have guests over at mine, actually . . . but maybe another time?”

And Tom’s eyes filled with soft amusement, “Another time,” he agreed.

They bid each other farewell and Harry walked himself back over to the cottage, leaning his forehead against the door once it was closed. He was still flushed a brilliant pink and he didn’t know why.


	2. Dance Through the Peonies

It was nearly evening when Pansy and Draco finally woke up, heads pounding from their hangovers. They grumbled and cussed as they dragged themselves to the kitchen table to claim the late breakfast that Harry had whipped up for them. (Thankfully, his blush had calmed hours before; Merlin knew it was the type of thing that would’ve provoked Draco into endlessly badgering him.)

They sat at his table and ate, grumbling the whole time about their hangovers. And Harry felt content, sitting there with his friends in such a domestic scene.

 _I wonder if Tom ever has this,_ He thought, and then immediately after, _where did that come from?_

He fought down another blush and shooed Draco and Pansy out through the floo as the sun set on the day.

Not long after he sent them home, there was a knock on the door. And there was Tom, handsome as ever in his pressed robes.

“I figured your guests would be gone by now, so I thought I’d come over and extend an invitation to tea tomorrow afternoon.”

“I’d love to,” Harry admitted, unable to deny it.

Tom smiled and Harry’s legs turned to jelly. “Excellent, I’ll see you then,” he said, turning and walking back over to the manor.

=====================================================================================

Over the next couple of months, Tom continued to invite Harry over for afternoon teas and lunches and those damn parties. And they got to know each other.

Harry told Tom about his childhood, about growing up with his parents and Sirius and Remus, about his time at Hogwarts.

And Tom, Tom told him everything he could think to tell him. Even the ugly truths that made Harry flinch. But they were never too much for him, never so much that he left.

Tom told him about his mother and his father, how he’d been born to be orphaned and destitute because of his mother’s choices. He told Harry about growing up in a muggle orphanage where his magic got him labeled as a devil child when all he could have wanted was to be safe and cared for.

He told Harry about the rabbit and how it hung, twitching and writhing from the rafters because Billy Stubbs had slighted him.

“You must understand,” Tom said, “that the sin my mother fell to, was her own weakness. She was unable to control her selfish desires and forced herself on my father because of it. I was born of her sin and paid dearly for it. And I don’t intend to leave anyone paying for mine.”

Harry thought of a young Tom Riddle. A little boy in an orphanage where his only sin was being different (hanging of rabbits aside). And then he thought of how understanding that it wasn’t his own fault that he’d ended up there was probably something that hadn’t come about until he’d escaped. Perhaps he’d even only learned it recently. 

Tom continued. “I clawed my way out of the hole of my mother’s debt to the world. And I don’t intend to dig myself into another.”

And Harry’s heart ached for the little boy in the orphanage.

Harry almost felt bad to talk about his own idyllic childhood. He’d been happy basically the entirety of it. He’d had good, steady friendships throughout and enjoyed his time as a quidditch player and then even more as captain. He’d even turned his schoolyard rival into a friend in Draco Malfoy.

But Tom always listened so attentively when he talked. How could he not keep telling him when Tom looked at him like that?

=====================================================================================

Tom’s father had died just before Tom had managed to track him down through his maternal uncle. And wasn’t that just tragic. But his grandparents still lived, and they were elated at his presence. He looked so much like his father and they had wished to see him as long as they’d known of him, but none of them had ever known where to look.

“They didn’t blame me for what happened to him,” he’d said, sounding shocked at the discovery even after all the years that he’d been living with it.

“How could they” Harry asked, “When the sin wasn’t yours?”

The manor that Tom and Harry had tea in was the same home that Tom had approached to find his family, the same one he’d inherited when his grandparents passed a few years after he graduated from Hogwarts.

The other wizarding families had moved in and built up the area around it, in hopes of getting bestowed some glory through proximity to the Heir of Slytherin.

And the rest was history. Tom had continued gaining prestige by his magical prowess and pedigree and amassed favors through the wealthy purebloods who flocked to him. His parties where those same wealthy purebloods gathered were old Professor Slughorn’s wet dream. They were what he wished the Slug Club could have been.

A younger Harry might have run from Tom and his past. But Tom was not pure evil. He was a truly complicated man. Yes, he had done bad things, some of which made Harry’s skin crawl to think about, but Harry had done his fair share of bad, stupid things in his own time at Hogwarts.

=====================================================================================

It all culminated at the end of summer, just a week before Harry was to return home and begin his mastery.

Tom planned and threw the largest party of the summer, a truly grand affair, the mere price of which boggled Harry’s mind, not that Tom much cared if Harry was starstruck by a party that failed to compare to his own grandeur. (And Tom was certain by that point that no party would ever match Harry.)

So, Harry met Tom at his manor, dressed to the nines by Draco and Pansy. He was sure the night would be just perfect.

And it really was.

Tom swept him through a seemingly endless waltz that had Harry falling deeper than ever. They drank spiked punch and champagne and Harry giggled when Tom whispered commentary about the guests and events into his ear.

Sure, Bellatrix Lestrange was cutting in at almost every opportunity and Tom had to indulge her. And sure, she hung on him whenever they broke away from the dancefloor to have a drink or a chat, her husband standing off to the side looking bored and smoking a cigarette all the while. But otherwise, it was wonderful.

It was so wonderful that they didn’t notice Bellatrix Lestrange watching them disappear out the garden gate in the middle of the night.


	3. Orange Blossoms

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's your warning, the major character death warning comes into effect in this chapter, this is your final chance abandon ship. Whether you stay or go, I appreciate you reading and I hope you enjoyed it.

Tom and Harry fell into bed together in a flurry of kisses. Lips pressing to cheeks and shoulders and the sides of necks as clothes fell away under fumbling hands.

There the softest confessions of love whispered between gasping moans and whines. They basked in the love that was blossoming so sweetly between them that night. It was so potent in the air that they both were drunk on it.

They woke to the same sweetness they fell asleep to, tangled up in the sheets. They continued exchanging sleepy kisses until there was a knock on the door.

And Tom, ever the gentleman, dressed himself and went to get it, pausing for a moment when Harry whined in bed, to press a kiss to his brow.

“I’ll be right back, lovely. I promise.”

Harry snuggled back into bed, watching Tom wander out into the living room to answer the door. (It was the most disheveled he’d ever seen Tom, all dressed up in rumbled clothing, and the sight was precious.)

=====================================================================================

Tom opened the door to find nobody there, so he stepped out onto the porch to look around for whoever had knocked.

“Hello—"

He was cut off by a shout of, “Avada Kedavera!” and a burst of green light.

And his world went dark.

=====================================================================================

Harry was roused by a shrill scream from outside that caused him to catapult himself out of bed. He was dressed haphazardly in pants and an unbuttoned shirt and was out the door in an instant.

And there was his Tom, collapsed on the porch, eyes open and lifeless. He was dead.

Bellatrix Lestrange was the one screaming. She was at the end of the walkway leading to the front porch, collapsed in her husband’s restraining grip. She was wailing like a woman widowed. As if she hadn’t just taken Harry’s lover away from him. And Harry knew that she had, in his heart he knew that she was responsible for Tom’s dull gaze reflecting the cheery blue of the sky overhead.

Harry didn’t realize he was screaming until the aurors arrived and someone (he later realized it was Draco who’d passed out on a couch in the manor during the party) wrapped their arms around him and soothed him until he stopped. It wasn’t until the aurors questioned him that he realized that he’d screamed himself hoarse.

The aurors took the Lestrange’s away in handcuffs to be held until their trial and left Harry in Draco and Pansy’s care.

Harry didn’t do much of anything for days, just sat listlessly staring out the window for hours on end. He didn’t even cry until the third day. And when he started, he couldn’t stop. He holed himself up in his room. He didn’t eat and he didn’t sleep.

=====================================================================================

Bellatrix Lestrange got off with a stint in St. Mungo’s mental ward. Rodolphus Lestrange was not charged.

=====================================================================================

The night after the trial, Harry went down into the garden of Riddle Manor and out onto the dock. He stared out over the water at that horrifically beautiful green light. And he cried.

He cried until he had no tears left.

There were hands draping a robe around his shoulders. And there was Tom. Not in the flesh, but it was him all the same. A shimmering silver specter of the man Harry loved so dearly.

He smiled at Harry and ran a finger over Harry’s cheekbone.

If Tom had been a touch more solid, perhaps he could have held Harry up when he fell to his knees. Instead, he followed him down and wrapped translucent arms around him. His touch felt like a cool breeze pressing into Harry’s skin and he treasured the contact.

=====================================================================================

The next morning Harry woke to bird song echoing over the lake. He was wrapped up in a robe that smelled, faintly, of Tom.


End file.
